A “humanoid robot” can be defined as a robot with certain attributes of the appearance and functionality of a human being such as a trunk, head, arms, legs, the ability to communicate orally with a human being using voice-recognition and vocal synthesis, etc. A robot of this kind aims at reducing the cognitive distance between man and machine. One of the most important characteristics of a humanoid robot is its ability to support a dialogue as natural as possible with a human interlocutor. This capability is essential for the development of “companion robots” to help the elderly, sick or simply lone people in the necessities of daily life, and to provide these people with an acceptable—also from the emotional point of view—substitute to the presence of a human personal assistant. For this, it is essential to develop the ability of such humanoid robots to interact with humans in a way which emulates as closely as possible human behavior. In particular, it is necessary that the robot can interpret questions or statements of the human being, make replicas in conversational mode, with a wealth of expression corresponding to that of a human being and modes of expression that are in synergy with the types of behaviors and emotions that are typically those of a human being.
A first step in this direction has been made thanks to the methods of programming Nao™ humanoid robots marketed by the applicant and disclosed in international patent application WO2012/000927 concerning a robot player, and in international patent application WO2012/010451 concerning a humanoid robot with a natural interface dialogue.
However, the robots disclosed by these documents can only perform limited and predetermined elements of dialogue.
International patent application WO2013/150076 describes a humanoid robot with a conversational agent, voice recognition tools and tools for analyzing the behavior of interlocutors, which shows a richer conversational ability than that of pre-existing robots.